Parenthetical
by pinksnowboots
Summary: Although the all-too-common (in John's humble opinion) assumption that John was Sherlock's lover (not only his lover, but his de facto wife) was entirely untrue (until recently, at the very least), it was undeniable (even by John, who was the greatest of deniers) that Sherlock's aversion to self-destructive or otherwise less than ideal behaviors stemmed from John's disapproval.


Hello friends-I know I've been AWOL for a long while (college and such), and that this is not at all what I intended to write, I've developed a mental block against continuing my in-progress stories because I'm in such a different place than I was when I left them off. I'm working on building the mental capacity to continue them, but at the moment I'm just forcing myself to write whatever I can-which is in this case, a rather random little Johnlock musing thing which abuses parentheses. Enjoy, and hopefully I shall return with more writing related things soon.

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Although the all-too-common (in John's humble opinion) assumption that John was Sherlock's lover (not only his lover, but his de facto wife) was entirely untrue (until recently, at the very least), it was undeniable (even by John, who was the greatest of deniers) that Sherlock's aversion to self-destructive or otherwise less than ideal behaviors stemmed from John's disapproval.

Although he had already been trying to stop smoking (no matter how dramatic it looked, it was murder on the lungs), the real catalyst for Sherlock's extreme attempts at quitting was John's intense dislike of the smell (and certainly, without John, he wouldn't have been able to successfully quit-genius he may be, but brilliant deductive skills and a just-as-impeccable memory made hiding anything from himself impossible, and Mrs. Hudson's concealment skills were, shall we say, not on par with her impressive culinary prowess).

Somehow, John's mere presence was enough to avert any relapses into harder drugs (Sherlock never desired the respect of anyone, of course, but John's intense look of disapproval was enough to cow anyone).

He even managed to kick his addiction to nicotine patches (although Sherlock sometimes seemed superhuman in his deductions and logic, he still fell prey to simple psychological tricks, and when John had commented that with a mind like his, he should be able to kick any habit easily with a pointed look towards his arm, the more typical part of Sherlock's brain took that as a challenge, which he then proceeded to succeed at).

He realized that he had begun to be illogical in his deference to John's wishes when he caught himself attempting to be quieter when bustling around the flat (he justified it to himself that he didn't want to trigger John's PTSD by creating any noise similar to a gunshot, but since Sherlock was the one whose line of work exposed John to real gunshots and other loud and actually dangerous noises, he knew that line of reasoning was deeply flawed).

Sherlock knew that he had a problem when he began to correct people who made incorrect assumptions about the nature of his and John's relationship (not that Sherlock cared, but John certainly did, and telling the unfortunate souls off was rather enjoyable, and John seemed to appreciate it until Sherlock began to deduce the reasons why they were not, in fact, lovers, in which case John became even more embarrassed than before, and inexplicably somewhat disgruntled).

And finally, at John's insistence (of course it was at John's insistence. No one else's word even had a chance of sinking in) he even stopped deducing embarrassing facts about choice people (namely Mrs. Hudson, who really didn't deserve it, and John's girlfriends, who usually, in Sherlock's opinion, did) although he refused to stop deducing John (actually, he tried it for a short period of time, but it was difficult for him and he silently deduced that John felt unsettled by the development and aborted the experiment).

So really, it was entirely John's fault that Sherlock eventually came to the (completely logical) conclusion that if John was going to act like his wife (by dictating his behaviors, for that was all that Sherlock was entirely sure that wives did), then he would pursue other wifely services from the man (for although he held sentiment in extremely low regard, he was not without emotion, and he had long since deduced that love and lust were two such pesky things which he fell prey to when in the vicinity of the former army doctor).

Unfortunately, (well, subjectively he supposed that in the grand scheme of things lost and gained, it wasn't such an unfortunate development as a whole) although his affections were returned in full (Sherlock really _should_ have been able to deduce as much, as John teasingly informed him, to which Sherlock replied that what he _had_ deduced was that emotions were pesky little buggers which hindered the formation of accurate deduction), the more intimate John became with Sherlock's body (a quite welcome development), the more Sherlock's behaviors (even and especially intimate ones) became subject to John's preferences.

He no longer was permitted to deny their romantic entanglement (which he learned through an uncomfortable encounter with Mycroft), but he also was not allowed to refer to John in terms that implied any sort of wifely position (even if Mrs. Hudson was the one who made the offending comment and Sherlock who merely agreed).

When they began to share a bed, Sherlock's was no longer permitted (to be fair, John had never explicitly forbid him, but with intimacy came even greater insight into John's behaviors, and Sherlock was sure that even an entirely mediocre mind could deduce John's displeasure if they were in a position of similar intimacy) to spend his nights protesting insomnia by pacing around the sitting room of their flat.

When it came to matters of physical affection, there were certain guidelines, some of which spoke to basic human preferences (such as the fact that when one was bloody, one could not initiate displays of affection towards one's significant other until one cleaned oneself up) and some of which were directed at making sure Sherlock kept his body in a state where lavishing affection on it wouldn't remind John of unpleasant matters (if John felt that Sherlock had been chewing on his lips or the inside of his mouth, there would be no kissing, as John had explained that he didn't like to feel the physical reminders that Sherlock still had the impulse to hurt himself).

And John became so transparently and pathetically put out when women flirted with Sherlock (which happened much more often than he himself was aware of; although his deductive skills were unparalleled, they tended to be occupied with matters of much more import than the subtle simpering of some female), that Sherlock took it upon himself to state explicitly and without segue that he was, in fact, taken (the abruptness and irrelevancy with which he delivered this proclamation embarrassed John, but the effort was so endearing that he couldn't be truly annoyed).

But somehow, he never resented John for the subtle behavior modifications that were prompted by his presence (likely because most of the changes were, in fact, positive, although Sherlock deemed many of them unnecessary) and the fact remained that John never gave any indication of disapproval of Sherlock's tendency to deduce facts about him (except in bed, when it _really_ was not the appropriate time).

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Thanks for reading-and remember, reviews are always lovely!


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